Parties, observers and accessions

Parties

Most parties have been bound by the Agreement since its entry into force. Some acceded to the Agreement at a later date, as shown below. The table also shows the date of entry into force of the revised GPA for each party.

 

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Accession to the GPA 

All WTO members are eligible to accede to the GPA. At present, WTO members are in the process of acceding (). Five other WTO members have undertaken commitments, in their WTO accession protocols, to initiate accession to the GPA. They are Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Saudi Arabia and Seychelles.

The accession process starts with the submission of an application for accession and has two main aspects: negotiations between the acceding member and parties of the GPA on the former's coverage offer, and verification that the acceding member's procurement legislation is consistent with the GPA's requirements - for example, regarding transparency, procedural fairness for suppliers and domestic review.

Pursuant to Article V of the revised GPA, special and differential treatment for developing countries in the form of transitional measures such as offsets, price preference programmes, initially higher thresholds and phasing-in of entities can be negotiated by a developing acceding country in the accession process, subject to the agreement of the other parties and the acceding member's development needs.

Once the terms of accession have been agreed between the GPA parties and the acceding WTO member, the Committee adopts a decision inviting the member to accede to the Agreement. The decision specifies the agreed terms and provides a timeframe for the acceding member to deposit its instrument of accession with the WTO Director-General (typically three to six months).

The WTO Secretariat provides technical assistance to assist developing country WTO members interested in learning more about the GPA and/or acceding to the GPA. Where appropriate and desired by accession candidates, other intergovernmental organizations (e.g. regional development banks) or governance-focused institutes may also provide technical assistance with regard to GPA accession.

 

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Observers 

Any WTO member or observer may submit a written request to the Government Procurement Committee to participate in the Committee as an observer, and may be accorded observer status. The process of becoming an observer is set out by a Decision of the Committee on Government Procurement GPA/1, Annex 1.

WTO members with observer status in the GPA Committee

International intergovernmental organizations granted observer status in the GPA Committee

• International Monetary Fund
• Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development
• United Nations Conference on Trade and Development
• International Trade Centre